This invention relates to a method and apparatus to monitor, detect and determine cholesterol levels and more particularly, it relates to a method to monitor high cholesterol levels in a non-invasive manner with photon correlation spectroscopy.
Cholesterol is a steroid alcohol and is present in animal cells and body fluids. It is known that high levels of cholesterol of the blood lead to a build up of plaque on the wall of arteries and veins thereby restricting blood flow and causing a dangerous health situation. The condition of an excessive amount of plaque build up in the arteries and veins is known as atherosclerosis. Build up of excessive amount of plaque in the arteries is called artereosclerosis.
There is a school of thought which indicates that high cholesterol levels in the blood are caused by a person's diet. Those foods which have a significant cholesterol content are meat, poultry, fish, eggs, dairy products (including cheese, cream, milk and yogurt), fats and oils (including butter, lard, shortening, margarine, mayonnaise, peanut butter, palm oil, coconut oil and soybean oil). See Winston, M., A. Owen, Measurement and patterns of food consumption in the U.S., Cholesterol and Coronary Disease . . . Reducing the Risk, 1:5 (1987). Diet is also responsible for raising low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels and can contribute to hypercholesterolemia. See Grundy, S.M., The effects of diet on plasma cholesterol, Cholesterol and Coronary Disease . . . Reducing the Risk, 1:1 (1987). Most LDL is derived from the catabolism of very low-density lipoproteins (VLDL) which are secreted by the liver. Saturated fatty acids, which are found in animal and plant fats, generally raise the plasma LDL level. The most potent cholesterol raising fats are coconut oil, butter fat and palm oil. Meat fats, such as beef, pork and chicken, and cocoa butter, the fat in chocolate, raise the plasma cholesterol level approximately half as much as palm oil.
Early detection of an abnormally high cholesterol level is important in order to prevent the more serious problems associated with artereosclerosis. Early detection is important because if detected early, proper diet can be prescribed by a physician which will prevent the build up of the condition which leads to atherosclerosis.
A significant drawback with monitoring or measuring cholesterol levels from blood samples is that this technique obviously requires the withdrawal of blood from a patient. It also requires a significant amount of time for the blood to be analyzed and the results returned to the physician for diagnosis and prescription of a proper diet.